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‘Weird’ Body Makeover Trick

There are a lot of body makeover tips, strategies and techniques thrown around.

Recently the hot trend is on intermittent fasting.

Of course gluten has also caught a lot of slack for everything from obesity to inflammation.

Then we have the "typical" body makeover tips:

Eat breakfast daily

Get more sleep

Drink less calories

Eat more fruits and veggies

The list can go on …

But this one flies under the radar and, well, frankly, is a little "weird" in the sense that it goes against some of what we know and what’s often recommended.

Ready?

Be a boring eater – forget variety!

What do we mean by this? It means use a little less variety if you want a greater body makeover.

Here’s the deal.

While variety is good in terms of the fruits and veggies we eat, the more overall variety we’re faced with, the bigger the challenge to stay on track.

Case in Point — where do you think you’d eat more?

Exhibit A) You’re ravenously hungry, decide to stop at your favorite local "All You Can Eat" buffet for breakfast.Exhibit B) You’re ravenously hungry, so you decide to stop at a fine dining establishment, where you order off the menu for breakfast;

Hopefully you guessed "Exhibit A" where you’re faced with dozens and dozens of choices vs. just being served what’s on your plate and not having other options.

With so many choices, your mind will want to try all of them. Everyone eats with their eyes and when you continue to mound your plate, until it looks like a landfill, you’ll overeat. By a lot.

I’ll admit to falling for this myself. Recently, while traveling, I was at the hotel restaurant. It was a beautiful hotel with a breakfast spread to match. I had worked out. I was hungry. It had been a few hours since waking up.

And a friend had raved about the buffet.

So there I was. Had the Sunday paper. It was quiet. And my friend was right — the buffet was just as incredible as he said. Everything was local. All the baked goods were homemade on the premises. They had every food you could imagine.

But while it all tasted good, it was way more than any one (or 5) people needed. And I felt bad after — that Thanksgiving, overly stuffed, blek feeling.

The next day when I went back, I simply ordered off the menu and the food was just as good, just not overdone. I felt great walking away from that morning.

Big difference.

How can you apply this message to your daily life? While maybe you’re not faced with a huge buffet each morning, we also certainly have many options.

What if you took the same approach day in and day out in your own house as I did by ordering off the menu vs. the buffet?

Now we’re not talking about going out to eat only, per se, but simply planning to have the same breakfast every single day (in this example) to limit your choices.

For those in a super tight pinch try this. It’s fast. It’s easy. It tastes amazing. And it’s incredible for you. And it’s "boring" meaning it’s the same thing day in and day out. Like we said, though, consistency takes the thought and guessing game out of it. And the less you have to think, the more you can focus on the less you can "mess" things up.

5 Responses to ‘Weird’ Body Makeover Trick

I guess I kind of always do this. I eat plenty of veggies and fruit, but the rest of my eating is pretty boring. It seems it’s always a similar lunch and unless my wife gets creative in the kitchen, for the most part a similar dinner: meat, veggies, salad, with the occasional grain such as quinoa or couscous. Boring may be boring, but at least I know what works to help keep body fat low.

Hi Chris and Kara, I do this too. Food is just fuel.I eat the same thing almost every day. The “king” of eating this way is Clarence Bass. He maintains a 2% body fat eating the same thing every day and can tweak a spoonful of this or that to see a difference. I don’t do that but find it is easier if you know what you’re going to eat each day.

I’ve been getting pretty boring eating my vegies the same way all summer and appreciating them for their unique taste by steaming them lightly so that they are still brightly colored and adding just a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, salt & fresh ground red or black pepper; if it’s broccoli, a little fresh lemon juice freshens it even further:)